Charlotte Phillips - Kiss Me on This Cold December Night:

Charlotte Phillips

A division of HarperCollins Publishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright HarperImpulse an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith, London W6 8JB www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2013 Copyright © Charlotte Phillips Cover images © Shutterstock.com Charlotte Phillips asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Ebook Edition © December 2013 ISBN: 9780007536375 Version 2014-09-30 Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

Dedication For my lovely mum and dad. Mum, thanks for everything. And Dad, wherever you are, if it has internet access I know you’ll be reading everything I write and forcing everyone else to do the same. Love you both.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Charlotte Phillips

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

HarperImpulse an imprint of

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

77–85 Fulham Palace Road

Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2013

Copyright © Charlotte Phillips

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Charlotte Phillips asserts the moral right

to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is

entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International

and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

By payment of the required fees, you have been granted

the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access

and read the text of this e-book on screen.

No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted,

downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or

stored in or introduced into any information storage and

retrieval system, in any form or by any means,

whether electronic or mechanical, now known or

hereinafter invented, without the express

written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © December 2013

ISBN: 9780007536375

Version 2014-09-30

Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

For my lovely mum and dad. Mum, thanks for everything. And Dad, wherever you are, if it has internet access I know you’ll be reading everything I write and forcing everyone else to do the same. Love you both.

‘A suite if you have it, but I’ll take anything.’

Tom Henley wrestled his credit card from his wallet. He might have had his plans thwarted by the bonkers British weather, which for some insane reason had decided to dump a shedload of snow over the entire country in late December, putting it bang on track for the first white Christmas in years, but that didn’t mean he had to take it lying down.

‘Odds on for a white Christmas,’ the receptionist said, giving him a wink.

He stared at her beaming smile across the marble counter.

‘And that would be a good thing because…?’

When you’d spent Christmas in Barbados every year for pretty much your entire life, snow was not something to be excited about. On the contrary, it was a complication . Christmas to him meant sunshine and white sandy beaches and swimming in the calm Caribbean sea. And family of course. Let’s not forget that. This year, family responsibility would feature more than ever before. He pressed his thumb and finger to the bridge of his nose. The day had been on a steady nosedive since he’d attempted check in at Gatwick five hours ago only to be told that the entire place was at a standstill because of ‘the wrong sort of snow.’ Faced with the prospect of sleeping rough in the airport concourse, there was no way he was about to see it as a great adventure. A quick change of plan and now he was checking into the Lavington Hotel, his place to stay of choice whenever he came to London. Crystal chandeliers, velvet sofas, marble floors and freshly brewed coffee. Just what he needed after hours of airport tannoys, irritable crowds and fast food outlets. The relaxed luxury and familiarity of the place soothed him.

Or would do, if everyone would stop with the excitement over the UK’s inability to cope with a bit of frozen water.

The receptionist’s smile faltered.

‘It’s romantic, isn’t it? Doesn’t everyone always dream of a white Christmas? It’s only a week away, I’m sure we’ll hang onto the snow long enough for that. And it’s really not that bad in London. The North has got the worst of it.’

Hang on to the snow? Oh just bloody great .

‘I don’t dream of a white Christmas,’ he snapped. ‘I’ve got commitments.’

‘Work, is it?’ Her tone had an edge of frost now that perfectly matched the weather.

‘Work and family,’ he snapped. The two things were going to be inseparable for him, more now than ever. ‘The airport was at a standstill. It might not be too bad in London but apparently it’s the wrong sort of snow. Whatever the hell that means. And there’s some kind of issue with fog and visibility. In twelve hours I’m meant to be holding a glass of eggnog at the yearly family reunion and instead I’m stuck here for the foreseeable.’

Not that he had any particular sense of excitement about going. Anything lost its charm when you’d done it twenty-eight times. But of course the Christmas trip had nothing to do with his own excitement or his idea of what might constitute R and R. It was about duty and responsibility; had been for years now. And in his world those were things that weren’t to be messed with.

‘Ah well, that’s what you get when you tie yourself into tradition.’ An amused voice drifted across from the adjacent check-in line, a faint west-country burr lacing it, and he turned to look at the girl checking in next to him – obviously another snow-lover, was he completely surrounded? His intended cutting response never made it out of his mouth.

Ella carried on filling in the check-in documentation without looking up.